


A Cure for Diplomacy

by letmetellyousomething



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Dubious Science, Gen, Humor, IN SPACE!, M/M, Mutual Pining, Surreal, Voltron General Big Bang 2017
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-15 12:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyousomething/pseuds/letmetellyousomething
Summary: Keith is accused of fraternizing with Shiro's butt by Lance.Shiro thinks romance in the workplace is a bad idea.Meanwhile Team Voltron gets a distress signal from a former intergalactic spa planet, Planatcea, a place reigned by ghosts, eternally suspended decay and aqua noodles.[Vld vacay episode meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with horror sprinkles on top]





	1. In which Keith fails to make eye contact with Shiro

“Look, the Olkari planet is on place onehundredfourteen of 'Amazing Wonders of The Outer Central Galaxy'!“

The castle of Lions, and with it the paragons of the Voltron Alliance and defenders of the universe, got a lot of distress calls. Deciding which one to pick would always be a choice of enormous weight which could only be shouldered with impeccable morale integrity... or the irreverence of five rebooted space explorers and a princess touched by cabin fever.

 

“...Santraginus V,“ Hunk declaimed, disregarding the pad Pidge was waving in his face.

“Home to beautiful marble-sanded beaches, beautiful sea-fish, beautiful sea-shells and beautiful sea-water, the last of which is-“

“That does sound rather nice!“ interjected Allura quickly.

She was the only one who was endorsing almost all propositions. It actually made the others nervous that she wasn’t making her own suggestions and the more observant among them expected some kind of power move. Maybe they could have agreed on a location if she had come clean, because right now the paladins were just vetoing each others propositions, while hanging out in the star map and scrolling through their respective datapads.

“Nuhuh, no way! You said the natives are crab people. I’m not flirting with crab maiden, whether they are beautiful for crustacean or not.“

“You were licking your fingers for that Frogstar 2 spice mix, mister,“ Hunk grumbled, but swiped left to the next culinary-natural attraction of the universe.

“The Olkari have more than one settlement! We're their allies! We ought to visit them!“ Pidge said accusingly. She debated a lot like the Holt’s bull terrier, Bae Bae: you don’t let go of your arguments, or great sticks.

“They still haven't sent out a distress signal though,“ Keith had to point out.

“Guys, if we can't make up our minds, then we should just take the nearest one,“ said Shiro, whose vice, workaholism, had the tendency to sound more reasonable than cooking, shiny technology, shopping, the femme population of any given planet etc.

He dragged the star map around, switching from an abstract to a numeric scale. Keith watched as the virtual presentation of a red giant phased through his chest.

“That would be …Garkrupp.“

Pidge groaned outright, voicing the general opinion on the bridge of Garkrupp's ability to stay unconquered1.

“Now, c'mon guys...,“ Shiro said lamely. 

“Ohoho, but everything is near now that we can teleduv again! Number one, the good folks on Planatcea sent out a distress signal!“ Coran piped up from his place on the floor.

He had thrown his back out when trying to find Platt, the mouse who had stolen his discreet ear massage wand six episodes ago. Fortunately for him everyone other than Shiro was eager to go anywhere but Garkrupp, which gave Coran vital momentum. He cleared his throat, coughed, pulled down the scrawled message, which was taped with several pop-ups of colorfully shimmering tickets

 

“Uuh, are those coupons? What’s Planatcea like?“ Lance was ready to indulge Coran, being more in tune with the ailments of the middle-aged. Keith and Hunk plucked one coupon each from the air.

 

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/hAjbLh4.jpg)

 

Hunk read his, “Two for one. Get an eye, tentacle or appendix of your choice massage for free (worth 340 000 GC).“

Pidge leaned over to read Keith’s, “These suck... two for one Janx Spirit! At our ...android maid bar!?“

“What does the message say, Coran?“ Shiro asked him, while Pidge snagged the coupon from Keith's lax fingers.

“Oh, you know... Just the usual cry for help. The Galra probably want to get their claws on Planatcea's newos-water. It's a medium for tele-physioterapeuthic therapy, and a powerful memo cleansing agent when ingested! Nothing gets the old badoodlebox going like a good soak in newos-water! Imbrued affinity stones used to be all the rage. But among us, it’s also used to apply heat and cold to the body, “ Coran thought wistfully of the stone massages. That would just be the ticket for his back right now. “I’m sure the princess ought to benefit from their methods to recover her strength.“

“Alright!“ Lance pumped his fist. “It’s decided. Water’s my element, after all!“

Allura clapped her hands elegantly. “That does sound rather quaint. I always had a weakness for their resorts, but father found fault in symbiotech made genius loci. Said vacation goo builds character.“

“Right. By the way princess, if you want to apply heat and cold to your bo-“

Shiro cut him off by clasping his Galra hand over Lance’s mouth.

“It is inappropriate to talk to your commanding officer like this,“ he reproached, taking the hand off Lance's pout. Sometimes he felt uncomfortable with the reaction speed of his galra prosthetic. Once it had slapped Lance over the head before he could finish his sentence with “...fa deez.“

Keith hadn't understood the euphemism in the first place, but added, “Yeah, shut up, Lance!“

“I’m not the only one making a pass on commanding officers here!“ Lance complained.

He might have left it at that, but Shiro asked, “And what do you mean by that?“

He suspected that Lance had seen him and the princess bathe the mice together2.

“Keith-“ Lance grasped for something and took the most likely straw.

“Keith was totally leering at your butt the other day!“ he said, dramatically opening his arms. “Now that's unprofessional.“

The accused red paladin ground his teeth at him. “What the hell! I didn’t!“

“You so did!“

“Enough,“ Shiro said wearily. “Even if he was, he was NOT saying it to my face. Let's just go with Planatcea. Allura, can you put in the coordinates? We'll have a talk about this later... Keith.“

“Hah! Say whaaat, mullet!“ Lance shouted out, before the words sunk in. “Wait, what.“

 

The exchange of confused and speculative glances around the room incidentally had the same kinetic pattern of a certain Altean pinball game of Boffle Orb which Coran had played 10 780 years prior. A key resemblance was that one of the flipper balls got stuck from the start, which was the equivalent to Keith not being able to catch Shiro’s gaze, before he pushed himself up to leave the bridge with a slump to his shoulders.

“Is it not proper to look at the Earthling's backsides?“ Allura whispered to Coran.

 

\-- 

Keith trotted towards the kitchen to find something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike food. His pad beeped halfway down the hallway with those glowing ribs. It was definitely Shiro, checking in with him. Keith wasn't sure what to think so he decided to rather not think, nor look at the text.

Hunk's attempts of changing the goo's taste were littering the kitchen. He had experimented with fermenting the goo, smoking the goo, curing the goo, pivoting the goo, and sometimes throwing the goo at other people (haha), but most of these techniques amounted to “let it go off“ as far as Keith understood it. He sniffed at the content of two bowls before finding one goo with scrambled egg consistency that just smelled slightly like sour cream. “Thanks for the meal,“ he mumbled, as he peeled the rest of the membrane lid off.

This blank state of mind was just how the Red Lion liked his consciousness when she visited. Keith noticed because he felt an impersonal righteous fury with the implied weight of several tons of big space cat when he was about to grab a clean plate3. It was as if Red had tenderly rested her paw on the apex of his head, and she wasn't pushing him down several sizes just yet.

“Hey Red.“

Her inquiry was like the woooosh of a fire and a low-sounding roar. Like, a wooshy roar, if you so will, with a center of silence.

“I’m fine. Lance just claimed something silly, because... he’s a silly guy.“

Keith couldn't think well with Red stepping on his brain like this. It was easier to sync through the interface of the lion cockpit. The conflation of “Shiro“, “biased“ and “sex“, which was the center of Lance’s accusation, would have been very tricky for him to put into words anyway, because his first instinct was that he’d rather fight a handful of drones in a cage match in hand to hand combat.

Keith put the plate on one of the stoves so that it wouldn't slip out of his hand.

And then red lion left his mind.

He stood still for a moment, listening to her absence. He and Red acted in snyc, better than any other paladin and lion pair. But now that she was dipping into his mind regularly, the day-to-day stuff? He hadn’t been quick or honest enough to scrape at his true instincts of what was what, the way they did when they fought and flew together.

Shiro and him had practiced this at the Mamoran head quarter, he offered, hoping she’d return. That time, when Shiro couldn't be sure whether or not the Blade of Marmora’s accusation that he had stolen that luxite blade was correct. He had come through for Keith in the end. Even though Keith had lied to him about smuggling the knife in, and his suspicion about being part Galra.

Yes. They had practiced this.

They would be fine.

 

 

If Red was listening, she gave no sign of agreeing or disagreeing with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 The Garkrupp really, really liked parades. Everyone agreed that the weeklong parade in Voltron's honour around the equator had been wonderful, if a little short. To be reconquered by the Galra empire meant more parades, and a welcome change-up of parade themes. Some rebellious Garkrupp elements claimed that demonstrations were just as good, but they clearly missed the point of parades.
> 
> 2 This being the deviation point of this story to the original timeline of the show, he maybe had a reason to feel guilty, if you believed in that sort of thing. At the very least Thace had to survive five more days of druid scrutiny on the cross, a martyrdom nobody is catholic and kinky enough to deserve.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 3 He could tell because he usually wasn’t that furious with clean plates.


	2. In which Shiro smiles like the flash signal of a pocket mirror

Keith had, somewhat unfairly, the reputation of being a mid noughties emo instead of an ninteteenhundredeighties emo, despite of the prominence of his mullet. He did make his way back to the bridge in time to watch the run-up after listening to MCR though. Sometimes he really thought his father had taken him into the city, to see a marching band4.

The spiraling landing run lead the castle through floating hoops in salmon pink, mint green and cream white revolving like a barber's pole. Every so often a too brightly lid billboard with neon stars whipped by, and every hoop they passed seemed to suck them further into the vertigo. Both Pidge and Lance were empathetically leaning into the movement of the castle while sitting crossed-legged on the floor.

"This reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog games," Lance explained to the room, when Keith stopped to stand behind them. If it was an attempt at talking loudly to cover a growing interpersonal distance that he, for a change, felt to be his fault, then Keith didn’t get it.

"It reminds me of Googie architecture," Shiro added lightly. He was met by blank stares. He shrugged sheepishly and the group turned, vindicated, back to the view.

The surface had an uniformly dark green sheen to it. Keith couldn’t find any signs of the planet being settled, aside from the hoops.

"Won't flying through the rings make us an easy target for aerial attacks?" asked Keith, who had never done anything in his life to avoid being a killjoy.

"Well, we haven't picked up any Galra life signals yet."

"If we could do that, we would have picked up Keith’s a long time ago," Hunk mumbled.

Coran coughed in what he thought was a suave move of dodging the bewildered undercurrent of "there is a Galra hybrid amongst us, and it's the red paladin".

"Anyhoo, there's not a hint of that bog standard glowing Galra purple anywhere! So at the very least it’s not an obvious take-over of theirs. The Galra are a firm believer of brand coherence."

"Let’s stay alert anyway, team," said Shiro close-by.

He had sheered up to Keith, who could hear how he shifted his weight from one foot to the other before leaning in. Keith inclined his head towards him without taking his eyes off the hoops. They were close to landing, and his heart was thumbing along. What was it he wanted just Keith to hear?

"Googie architecture is the onset of easily recognizable visual branding in service of suburban automobilized consumer culture in the 1950s," Shiro whispered5.

Keith inhaled and frowned. He looked up to the black paladin, gathering his wits together like playing cards. "...Like drive-thrus?"

"Yes!" Shiro gave him a blinking, warm smile.

It made Keith glad, pushed back the looming admonishment in his mind that they'd talk later. That implied that Shiro believed Keith was still leering at his butt.

Shiro had been his friend before the Keberos mission... His best friend.

And here, after the population bottleneck of leaving menkind far behind them, among a selection pool of six people, Keith was finally his.

 

"Huh," Keith hummed, turned- and almost jumped into his friend when they plunged through the last hoop, straight into the planet’s surface.

"Welcome... to Planetcea! What’s the purpose of your visit?"

A generated voice gurgled melodiously and echoed inside the hollow sphere of coiling matter cloud. They either had made a small wormhole jump, or they were inside the first planet, as far as Keith could tell. Whatever had happened, there was another planet ahead of them, inside of this dark sphere, fully lighted in a way that would have made any ol' cheese sweat.

"Your famous newos-water regime, please!" Coran pointed up a finger, before cracking his back carefully.

Shiro brushed past Keith, "Actually, we’re here because someone sent out a distress signal."

"Whether you’re seeking a quick refreshing visit or a peaceful indefinite stay, at Planetcea we have something for everyone. Although "distress" is an exquisitely rare demand, you won’t be able but help surrender to the sensations."

"Listen, if one of your spa guests needs our aid-"

"It’s not just the serene and refreshing atmosphere that our customers love, but the array of different services that the blend of neuro-IT and physiotherapy provides through our original newos-water. Book a stay by the end of this century and receive forty billion GC to spend in-"

Allura slammed her palms down on the terminal. "Someone from your location claimed that they, and I quote, ‘fear for the very existence of my kind’! I’d advise you to not waste our time further, even if you can’t help but waste our patience."

There was a pause that managed to sound petulant, followed by a click.

"You tell ‘em," Lance cheered her on.

"Referring to management," the voice stated. Stripped of its melodious gurgliness it sounded weirdly unfinished, like a commodity you weren't supposed to see yet because it lacked polish and the atoning love of its creator for customer service.

 

Pidge looked up from her screen, eyes glazed over. She had missed Allura's exchange with the AI entirely.

"Amazing... this ball shouldn’t have enough mass for gravity to round it off, or to clean up its planetesimal!"

"That stuff, is that the sphere we’re in?" Keith asked.

"Nah, planetismals get flat like crêpes... or more like buckwheat pancakes. You think they constructed it that way? They must have used artificial gravity. I bet they did. How the HELL did they do it?" Hunk complained, gesticulating.

Now that the castle kept drifted closer they could see that the geology of this planet- pardon, smaller celestial body meandered tastefully in creamy colors and had liquid in all the right places. What had first looked like a mountain range was an enormous building, topping off the surface that was turned towards them.

"Well, it’s naturally an Altean ingenuity," Allura had crossed her arms over her chest, awaiting the entrance of the management personnel with the heavy-lidded gaze of a commander. As a young teenager, before the war and some tactful directions by King Alfor that involved a stark talking to and signing her up for Altean lacrosse, she had relished in verbally knocking sub-par service personnel into shapes6.

"Something about the particles self-aligning via nanomagitek swarm intelligence. As you can see, it does the job. Not like some other life forms I ought to put a strongly-worded feedback form forth about!"

"Wait... how WERE they able to continue business as usual under the Galra-" Lance began, when Hunk, who had been the only one scrutinizing the sphere portside instead of Planatcea itself, started tugging his shoulder in silent alarm.

Lance turned around. His mouth fell open with a surprised, "Oh."

 

There was a women, or something like it. Floating just outside the castle, peering at them through an extreme circular fisheye lens that by turns magnified one eyeball, then her forehead, then the other eye. She seemed to have some input on the current she was floating on, but still adjusted to it by moving her foreshortened arms in painful fits and jerks.

Except there was no fisheye lens. Which meant that her eyes and head were doing the undulating bloating to half of her body size on their own.

"That is SO not non-rectilinear," Pidge said dryly before heaving her breakfast goo up.

Interestingly enough Alteans lacked the human psychological configuration of the uncanny valley because of their shapeshifting abilities. Their psychological profile made up for it with their intense kin-shared fear of getting something grubby on clean, shiny surfaces though.

In the face of this crisis the commanding officers each did what they did best: Allura pulled up the hexagon shield of the castle and got ready to leg it. Shiro was crab-walking over to Pidge to check on her. And Coran did a little anxiety jig.

"Princess, the intruder is too close to the castle to be shut out by our shields," Coran squawked.

"What do we do, get to the lions?" Asked Keith. Hunk was hiding behind both him and Lance now, while trying to pull his legs off the ground. "Make it go away!" 

"Eww, how is it doing that," said Lance as the person pressed their face to the dome, sounding half disgusted, half distantly fascinated. The Alteans shuddered in unison.

Coran caught himself first. "I've got it!"

He pounced the side of the terminal7, opened the hatch and started cranking.

For a moment all what could be heard was an ominous creaking, as hidden machinations of the ancient magic castle were set into motion. An immense wiper came into view, unfolded itself and swiped down the dome. The creepy voyeur got jammed in the wiper and was pushed down with slow, but stern insistence before they dropped out of the view entirely. Allura and Coran made disgusted noises all the while, although true to their resemblance to horses and space elves, they couldn't vomit.

Keith looked to the others for a reaction. Pidge was the one most composed after losing her stomach content.

She wiped her mouth, a little pale around her nose, and said, "Was it just me or did she look Altean."

"...Nonsense," said Coran from somewhere on the ground.

"Yes, absolutely not," said Allura, dappling Coran's brow and then hers resolutely with smelling oil.

"It cannot be an Altean, they wouldn't get a smidgen on the surface of the castle like that. It is unbecoming."

The paladins looked at each other, at a loss.

 

"Why not, she had the ears and the markings."  Lance pressed his pointers to his cheek bones.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4 When Keith used to get sand in his eyes, which happens a lot when you’re toddler sized in the desert, his father used to lick his eyeballs clean. Even now he was afraid to ask whether that was acceptable behavior from a parent who didn’t have the excuse of not being human. 
> 
> ...Apparently The Black Parade was released on Keith's birthday.
> 
> 5 As a NASA fanboy he was cursed by the amount of opportunities to infodump his peripheral space race trivia being converse with the light years he actually put between himself and earth.
> 
> 6 Triste triangles, for example. Or extentially self-questioning octagons. 
> 
> 7 The gentle reader will note that didn’t make his back better, did it now? 


	3. In which Lotar pretends to be a lad

"Oh FINE. As Paladins of Voltron it is our duty to help what might be an Altean or descendant of Altean lineage, whether they contacted us by pressing their ...pores against the sheen of the castle or not!“

Princess Allura opened her eyes, a serious expression gracing her face. They had retreated to just outside of the sphere, whose dark surface of Planatcea now looked like it was seething about a parking ticket, but trying to be playful about it to not seem unchill.

"So that distribution of their body mass, that was normal Altean behavior?" Asked Pidge, worried. She side-eyed Coran, discerning if he might spontaneously have a fit of decompression squeeze toy.

"Well, not exactly... but there are some weird and wonderful hybrids out there, aren't there?" said Coran8.

"They could be weirder," Allura quipped, surprising herself. She looked away, face blushing furiously pink. To her royal upbringing it had been an embarassingly low blow. Shiro glanced to his right and saw Keith crossing his arms. So Keith had caught on for a change, when Shiro had hoped he wouldn't. Now he was broadcasting dejection like a radio DJ's playlist past midnight that consisted only of "Halleluja" covers.

Keith's facial expression had always been bare wired like that, Shiro mused. In the past these flashes of raw emotion had made Shiro wonder: was cadet Kogane's unflappable demeanor really the product of the meticulous self-control of his image, or was each expression Keith Kogane, unfiltered? Nowadays it seemed amazing to him that he hadn't believed in Keith back then.

"Okay team," he said quickly. This wasn't the time to ponder how deeply Keith felt things. "Coran, Lance and I are going in for the recon.“

He was getting anxious about the lack of objectives at the start of a chapter. Having both Coran and Lance on a mission quadrupled the elements of ...surprise. But he needed to pay attention to Lance, see whether he actually felt mistreated.

Lance squared out his shoulders. "Yeah, let's check in.“

"We check for enemies,“ Shiro corrected, nudging him forward to the blue paladin's hanger elevator.

"...That too. You guys should get your swimsuits ready! Remember, every body is a swimsuit body!“

He turned around with a double pistols and a wink. Shiro figured he should let it slide. That his last rebuke about Lance's flirting had backfired wasn't going to influence his decision, he told himself, but Lance was in a way smoothing over his own nerves.

"Coran, will you be alright accompanying us?“ Shiro asked. "It could be dangerous, but we need someone to identify this person as Altean.“

"Of course! Why, I didn't climb the ranks of the Altean space squad aeronautics sub-tech nano-weaponry unit for nothing!“

 

Charging Planatcea's main building turned out more troublesome than attacking the average Galra ship. It started with their failure to force their entry through a demurely hidden service door into the main building undetected. 

They had advanced on mostly empty terrain uphill instead of pushing into neat corridors with intersecting ones to hide in, or Imperial drones lining up to run into their cross fire- They also couldn't go giant can opener with their lions on civilian buildings. 

The real trouble began because the door AI was chatty and cutting it open would have felt like the physical assault of someone called Andy Porter.

"...C'mon, I know you can open up. For your man Lance?“ 

"Awh, mate, that'd be wicked, but you know I can't,“ the door said sheepishly, clearly enjoying the back and forth. 

Shiro felt that their mission was going to shit. 

Shiro also had the urge to put the door's baseball cap the right way on. Maybe sit down with it to talk about its relationship with alcohol and its mum and finally teach it about basic skin care like lip balm and sun screen.

 

Shiro instead checked his datapad. Keith still hadn't answered to his message:

_Keith. Don't worry. It was the right decision in the moment. We'll talk about it later._

"What are you doing here anyway?“ Asked a voice laconically after a lull in Lance's persuasion attempt9. Shiro almost dropped his pad, and only caught it on the second dive.

"Nothing!“ He barked out.

"I'm having mad bants with my new mate Lance!“ The door answered for them.

"...Welcome, dear guests. Here on Planatcea we offer our guests a variety of ways to enter buildings. Whether you're a space morphing interdimensional creature, or a person having trouble deciding whether to push or pull the door knob, please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have. Visit one of our four main entrances for the full gateway experience.“

The voice, apparently the AI that had welcomed them earlier, shrugged its formal gurgling melodious voice back on.

After that Shiro and Lance didn't bother to hide their advance and trotted over the feather light mint green space to the main entrance, bayards at the ready.

Coran, meanwhile, ducked and dived out of the non-existent cover, determined to not make a BIMBLE10 out of this push.

Shiro's eyes involuntarily scanned the golden horizon. The planet had no natural light source. Instead everything was lit in the atmospheric lighting of an endless, pastel colored summer night, with the occasional popping neon colors. The sphere of Planatcea blacked out the rest of the universe, stars included. Shiro could feel something like claustrophobia crawl under his armor and down his neck .

He looked over to Lance, who caught his glance. Lance tried a reassuring smile. 

"Is it just me or does this place look like, totally abandoned?“ Lance rubbed his neck when they arrived at the pavilion that fronted the main building.

"All these ads and coupons made it sound like there should actually be people here, but Blue didn't pick up any either. What happened?“

"BOLO 11. We have to be ready to face the worst. On the count of three,“ said Shiro, while closing on the doorway.

Whether this was a choke point or not, he needed to keep going.

"One-“ Coran sprinted around his cover towards them.

"Two-“

The door opened.

"Three?“

Coran came to a skidding halt before the doorway, precariously balanced on one foot, before righting himself with a quick embarrassed brush-off of his clothes.

Coran, Shiro and Lance silently turned to peer into the lobby. Nobody was in sight. But Shiro thought he felt a presence: The AI was there, silently judging them for their antics. Aside from that the lobby looked like the foyer of an onsen Shiro had visited with his aunt when he was ten, which meant a lot of dark, elegant wall panelling. Although it was framed in more googie architecture putty.

One difference was that the pavellion was huge.

A rather more significant difference was the floor: it had the red-white grain and texture of smooth muscle meat. Somewhere in the distance they could hear water burbling.

 

"This looks exactly like the melia calo Santa Maria resort,“ Lance looked around, treading with careful optimism. "Look, they even have the same palm tree in the corner?“

"That's due to the multireminiprojectional marble,“ Coran explained as they walked, slap slap slap, to the cushioned echo of their own footsteps. The sounds seemed to echoe before the footsteps met the ground. "Quite the exquisite material.“

"What do you mean, multiprojectional? Does the hall look like an earth resort to you?“

Lance arrived at the unstaffed counter and hit the bell a few times, casually turning to Coran.

"Yes, I have a quite different impression of the place-“

An Imperial drone in a salmon pink uniform stood up behind the counter with a jerk.

Lance's face fell as he saw Shiro darting towards him, Galra arm activated.

 

Coran shrieked. The salmon pink of the uniform clashed horribly with the trademark Imperial purple.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8 And he didn't even know about season 3 back then! 
> 
> 9 Lance was trying to come up with an argument that involved the Altean phrase "Cheeky Wazblay".
> 
> 10 Coran was not the kind of man who BIMBLE'd anything.
> 
> 11 BOLO = Be On the Look Out. Lance understood YOLO instead and it blew his world wide open. 


	4. In which Coran helps with the interior design

The lobby was empty and silent again, except for the cropped and quietly sizzling parts of the Imperial drone and the sound of flowing water. The way the torso was draped over the counter made it look like a drunkard sleeping off its inebriation. Shiro reached over it to hammer testily on the bell. He had come close to accidentally scalping Lance in their squabble to take the drone out.

"What did they do to Mx Leeves, the concierge?!“

Out of his periphery Shiro could see something falling from the ceiling, much like a cannon ball dropping into boiling water.

Shiro closed his eyes for a moment.

Bipedalism was not the fastest terrestrial locomotion, but it performed well enough regarding endurance. All you had to do to keep the pendulum of your flesh framework going, was to take one step at a time, and follow that chain of necessity to the end. That's what Shiro did, day after day: he kept going. Yet in that moment before he turned around, Shiro just wanted to get back to the castle, let the door swoosh closed behind himself, dim the lights and do push-ups. And then, maybe, try and get a look at his butt in the mirror12.

"Who the woslack are you! Identify yourself!“ Coran demanded. He looked like an offended prawn.

The entity he was being ignored by was huge, but without the natural grace of being fat or tall. Their face was gaunt like a lion's, with bulging light green eyes. They emanated the smell of something that recently had been very dead and had now grown very alive in its wet rot.

"Paladins of voltron, welcome to Planatcea.“ The room echoed with the cooing voice of the AI.

"Platy, these are two of the paladins of voltron. ...And a Symthe, but even so, we are glad to have them.“ Coran made a small sound of protest.

"I thought they would keep this place alive, instead of killing off my most trusted service personnel,“ boomed their voice.

"Platy“ floated to the ceiling. They bobbed there like a slightly deflated, very imposing balloon from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

"You are that weird lady that was sticking to the castle!“ Lance gasped in before coughing.

"Hold on. Are you a …ghost? A dead, smelly ghost?“ He asked while holding his nose.

The room temperature dropped a dozen degrees of indignation.

"Most likely they are the genius loci Allura mentioned, the spirit of a location.“ Shiro explained. "You remember the Balmera?“

"Almost, number one,“ Coran corrected, relaxing into a more calm pose as he stroked his mustache, untroubled by the cold.

"A genius loci is the protective spirit of a place, not the place itself. Although its life forces are undeniably tied to it and its movement constrained by its parameters.“

"Platy, if I may call you that. Sorry about the... property damage. Were you the one who sent out the distress signal?“ Shiro started placatingly.

The temperature seemed to rise: the spirit warmed up to him.

"You were fearing for the existence of your kind?“

Not enough to honor him with an answer, though. His question rolled off them. "They will do,“ the spirit of Planatcea said, blandly content.

 

"Open the west wing. I'm thinking adventure pool, newos water lagoons, temperature rooms? No android maid café, it would be wasted on them. But I want menu 871 through 1011.“

Planatcea's spirit revolved around their own axis, looking very much like a slow motion jumping blue whale carcass with amazing hair while they gave the orders.

"Oh and the neurosensory deprivation chambers? They need some scrubbing from the last round. Get to it, will you?“

"Your wish is my imperative,“ the AI rejoiced.

"Again, we're sorry that we destroyed your- employee, but if you serve the Galra empire,“ Shiro said quickly, making a last attempt at a two-way conservation. "Then there will be a problem.“

The genius loci's eyes stared through him as they phased through the ceiling.

"Which Galra empire?“

 

 --

"So you want us to spend a few days on vacation here, because Planatcea is in decline?“ asked Lance. He kicked his legs out onto the foothold.

"Sounds like a sweet deal to me, but where's the emergency? Can she even die?!“

The AI had directed them to sit down in one of the seating areas for humanoids in the lobby.

"The Planatcea corporation is a fan of your work. It is our honor to welcome such illustrious figures as the paladin's of voltron. Let me introduce you to the last of Planatcea..."

The information dump that followed was accentuated by a lot of holo slides and gesturing, a flourish this text unfortunately cannot provide. It turned out that Newos water had been discovered when Altean alchemists discovered that homoeopathy had a point with water memory. Instead of diluting a substance to the nth degree, you had to concentrate the water though13.

Newos water treatment proved to be a huge success among the Altean elite. This was largely because it was so, so amazingly expensive to create gigantic subterranean water chambers with all those bismuth corals for tubes. Several dozen planets were opened up as branches and a few smaller celestial bodies at the universe's top locations were commissioned just for this purpose.

Unfortunately a lowly employee of Planatcea (maybe a Commis de cuisine, or worse, a lobby boy) then discovered that you could make concentrated water by adding less than the recommended volume of solvent to dehydrated water. Since then the high end Planatcea needed to back up their product line with more substantial pseudo-science to differentiate itself from SuperSpa's by-tor water, whose local affiliates now popped up on many a moon like pimples.

Still, Planatcea grew his customer base. That is, until the destruction of Altea and a 2 deca-phoebs long war put a dent into their fiscal century. Made in Altea just didn't inspire the same spending power in the citizens of the Galra empire. The once traditional brand name Planatcea was on wane. However it wasn't forgotten; just bought out by Unilu. Its franchise planets underwent structural changes, mostly backing on scale & fur shampoo, as well as the production of tiny hats.

The few celestial bodies that had already been commissioned were integrated into this or that solar system as swap moons, or turned into pulp.

 

"And how did Planatcea escape the same fate?“

Shiro made himself ask after the AI had stopped its retelling of the corporate history. 

"Yeah! Methinks you're skipping the part where you explain how the Galra haven't found you! Or why the genius loci here doesn't know about the Galra empire? Hmmh?“ Lance did his best to appear threatening to the whole room.

"And why it's keeping Imperial drones in one's employ!“ Coran rallied.

"The drones are decommissioned and pose no threat to our guests, I assure you. Our loyalties lie with the former Altean empire.“

"Okay, but-“

"Now would you mind putting that pot four foot to the left until Mx Arlando arrives?“

"...That one?“ Coran lifted the white pot with a minimalist blue plant that strived to be even more minimalist by being dead.

"You might want to give that one some of your famous newos water, ha! Ha.“

"Yes. Now, Mister Smythe, be a dear and carry the next pot from the the seating area over to the counter.“

 

Weirdly enough Coran complied with the AI's instructions and sheepishly carried the indoor plants of the lobby from one half to the other. The pots were identical, and held more or less well thriving plants or just blank foam soil. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the pattern otherwise. Lance and Shiro watched at first, then felt they had to help because of Coran's bad back.

The kidney table chimed with optimism when they were done. Another Imperial drone, visibly worn by time and with bigger fins than the models they were used to fighting, ambled over with a tray of three cocktails. It wore the cream white uniform of a soda jerk.

"I reworked them for customer service purposes.They make for cheap stand-ins for employees and guests in most regards. But lately, Planatcea has been suffering from symptoms such as: languor, discolored froth, bright eyes, weight loss and halophilism. Most likely due to customer atrophy.“

The AI's voice now seemed to come through the drone, giving it a tinny sound.

 

"Please, as sign of our high regard. Newos water on the house.“

"Oh, I know how this works!“ Coran got excited, rubbing his hands together. He took a long pull of his teal and blue drink. "Janx spirit with ococ cream? It is!“

Lance's smile of anticipation turned into a frown after sipping his drink. It tasted just like regular water.

Shiro leaned forward without touching his glass14. "That sounds dire. Why don't you open your doors to the public again? “

"This place cannot be found if I choose so. However I cannot keep them from talking,“ for a moment the AI's voice was stripped of its gurgliness again, possibly out of its deep hatred of space yelp reviews.

Suddenly foot steps could be heard, and only grew louder- In sync foot steps of what appeared to be a small platoon of Imperial drones advancing towards their location. Shiro stood up. Lance groped for his bayard in the couch cushions, slowed by the sense of hospitality they had enjoyed. 

"We were but a part of Planatcea corporation. One branch among the exquisitely few. I am used to running the logistics of a hotel of the size of a small planet: we led fleets of provision and maintenance shuttles, armies of servants, juggled resources of planet nations in the pursuit of true wellness,“ the AI's announced. Its voice had a more pleasant timbre, when it resounded through more and more tinny voice boxes.

The drones were now pouring through the ever-revolving elevators and doors, lining up before them in rows of twenty. Shiro thought numbly that a retreat would be difficult if they wanted to keep Coran alive.

"Without Planty here... I wouldn't know what to do with my capabilities,“ said the soda jerk drone suddenly to him. With its single voice it sounded weirdly confidential and they were within striking distance of each other. Shiro shuddered. His thoughts were like molasse.

Most of the drones wore salmon pink and cream servant uniforms. But there were some flashily dressed ones in bright teal fluffy robes which were meant to be guests.

Coran stood up, unperturbed by all of this, regarding the greeting of Planatacea's staff with the nonchalance of a royal advisor.

"I can provide a safe base for your alliance. But Planatcea has to stay. I will wait for your return, paladins,“ the AI continued through the soda jerk. It inclined its head. 

"Please, put your minds and bodies to rest.  You are in our care.“

The chorus of dressed up Imperial drones ended the AI's speech.

 

 

_-Keith. Don't worry. It was the right decision in the moment. We'll talk about it later._

_-Ok._

Shiro looked up contemplatively from the reply. Lance was flying them back to the castle, which was orbiting at a safe distance to what they now knew was the reach of Planatcea's genus loci.

It was no wonder that Keith's reply was so short. He trusted him. Shiro had promised to talk in person. And Keith didn't seem like a very talkative person in text anyway.

Shiro trained his eyes on the back of Lance's head while speaking into his pad. "Keith, meet me in the lounge at 2100.“

He pressed the emergency priority for his voice message.

He wouldn't have time to find a mirror before his talk with Keith. It was better that way. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12 Taking a photograph of his own butt hadn't occurred to him yet, bless him.
> 
> 13 The first discovered natural occurrence of concentrated water was on the original Alwa in the gigantic subterranean water chambers underneath the continent of the republic of Alwa lined with a myriad of photomultiplier tubes made out of bismuth corals. 
> 
> Planatcea was conceived when the Altean alchemists who dived into these water chambers every day noticed at the base camp that the vicinity to the concentrated water had hitherto unimaginable wellness properties. 
> 
> "You look amazing!" They kept yelling at each other.
> 
> "You never looked better, I'm furious!" They screamed.
> 
> The extra hydration illuminated their skin, and with the light reflecting more evenly off their hyper well-moisturised, smoother skin, their faces had a super healthy, teal glow. It also apparently filled in the crow's feet wrinkles in one's brain.
> 
> Pretty soon the more business-minded part of the alchemy task force broke off. They wanted to find a way to harness newos water for the good of the Altean beauty & spa industry.
> 
> 14 Shiro didn't drink his in case he got whiskey with water, the favorite of the old americanophile Japanese man he was at heart.


	5. In which Keith looks at Shiro's butt for a while

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I moved to another country two weeks ago, so although the story is already written, editing took longer this time.  
> Hope you enjoy and keep reading!

"Am I the only one who thinks it's a bad idea to stay on this weird spa celestial body?“ Asked Hunk, pressing his pointers together.

"Didn't you say she was, like, a dying ghost? I don't know about you, but that seems like the kind of out there sci-fi psychological thriller where the alien planet's bio-magnetic currents mirrors your psyche, then your dead wife appears and becomes a monolith and gets launched into space, and if that's not bad enough, the planet turns out to be a sentient AI, until you transform into a fetus? And it's probably some sort of metaphor for high-end capitalism making the consumer of luxury status symbols into the unborn consumed.“

"That was by far the worst adaption," Shiro mumbled absent-mindedly as he tapped his fingers on the back rest of the divan. Everyone had gathered in the lounge even before he had arrived. He suspected Hunk had told them about his and Keith's 2100 meeting15.

The problem was that telling them to clear off now would have made it more of A Thing, which was the opposite of his intentions.

 

"Hunk,“ Lance enunciated slowly. "Free! Spa! Vacay!“ 

Allura turned to the yellow paladin, tempering her impatience, "I understand your concerns, Hunk, but Altean capitalism works differently than your Earthen equivalent. We don't deny the yellmore-eats-yellmore nature of its system and instead enjoy the jolly challenge of its sportsmanship... for, uh, monoliths? full-heartedly. Planatcea is sustainable when being fed the authenticity of its guests, which is within the limited time of our stay, an unlimited resource. Therefore it doesn't need to eat itself OR us, alright?“

Lance threw his hands up in disbelief when Hunk ducked his head in doubt.

"You guys are whack! Learn to live a little. Besides, I'm running out of facial masks way earlier than I expected, because SOMEBODY who said the bowl was safe in the kitchen mistook it for one of his food experiments! My face needs this, pronto."  

"I said I was sorry!" Hunk rubbed his jaw and wondered since when Shiro had joining Lance with his reproachful look. 

"Okay... I get that, I think. But what about the natives here? I came from a place back on earth where people used to go on vacation to, before the climate change. Maybe you just... let the tourism industry die. If she really is the spirit of the place, she would become someone new anyway.“

  
Coran’s furrowed his brow for a tic. 

"Oh, but there are no natives!“ He recovered cheerfully after consolidating his benevolent space elf colonialism with Hunk's criticism.

"This was a commissioned planet, brand spanking new16. I mean, celestial body! Celestial body,“ he conceded quickly when Pidge turned her head around. She nodded slowly, allowing for the correction.

"I want to take some samples there," she said, words made curt by her focus on her newest data mining project. "From the planetismal and that marble. So count me as in favour of going." Silence settled in the room.

"Where's Keith? He's almost late to his meeting," Coran remarked innocently. 

Shiro sighed and stood up.

"Okay, this is enough. Everyone but the people who are supposed to be here: Get. Out!" 

 

\--

Keith flopped down on the oval divan in the lounge, eight minutes late. 

"What the hell is Hunk doing here?“ He growled.

He was in a bad mood. When he had walked into the room Shiro had been standing with his back turned to him. Keith had diligently checked where Shiro's butt was, to make sure where he wasn't supposed to look. Then he realized that he had just done that: looked at Shiro's butt. And that he kept ogling as he thought so, positively getting eye-loads of Shiro's modestly clad behind, while trying to search and failing to find both the source of Shiro's offense and his own guilt because the truth was- the truth was- 17

Keith stopped himself, frowning at the footnote. 

"Hey Keith. Hunk is here to support us,“ Shiro answered his question, nice and easy.

He sat down opposite to him, forming a triangle with Hunk18.

"Can I do anything else to make this conservation more comfortable for you?" 

After he had gotten over his first doubts Keith had been sure- so sure- that they only needed to talk about this alone and everything would be okay. That was one part why he insisted. The other part was his instinct to always go after the jugular.

"Why don't we talk about this /alone/,“ Keith asked. "Shiro?“

His friend seemed to brace himself, as he opened his mouth. A renewed sense of foregone conclusions settled in Keith's stomach.

"I'm your queer support,“ Hunk answered instead. "So don't worry, if Shiro gets heteronormative with you during your little talk, I might... tell him not to?“

Shiro's face went blank with surprise. He exchanged a look with Keith.

"Shiro's gay,“ Keith supplied helpfully. 

He wasn't even sure since he knew that. Shiro wasn't the kind of guy who was spreading info like that around. But he treasured this certainty for the life-affirming truth it was.  

Hunk managed to elegantly put two questions and one hoot of surprise into his "Whoaat?" before catching himself. 

"But weren't you saying earlier, you needed me in particular? Wait. Oh. I get it

You wanted me to come along as a neutral chaperon. This is actually about Galra Keith! Because I'm the only one on our team who doesn't have some kind of personal beef with the Galra. (Aside from my personal connection to Shay and the brave people of Balmera, who got subjugated by the Galra.) Or pretends to dislike Keith.

...Sorry dude,“ Hunk ducked his head after catching Keith's expression. Shiro tried to turn his facepalm into a nose scratch. 

"You're here as the yellow paladin. You keep the team together,“ Shiro reprimanded him gently. "Let's not read into it too much.“

"Right, we wouldn't want to do that," Hunk coughed delicately into his fist.

They lapsed into silence, in which Shiro couldn't decide whether or not Hunk thought he was overthinking Lance's allegation of butt ogling. The ironic implication was totally lost on Keith, who was busy feeling some solace in getting to know Hunk better.

"Keith, we're not having this conservation to accuse you. You didn't do anything wrong,“ Shiro started.

He raised his hand when the other started to object.

"Even if you had looked at me like that," he said, as lightly as a balloon tied to a brick.

"Back on earth I told you that a part of self-discipline is to be aware of the image you're projecting. Your front yard, so to speak. And starting to cultivate the front yard- the image you want to project?“

"That was ages ago,“ Keith said with a shrug and a chuckle.

The whole personality PR circus to become an astronaut was such a Garrison throwback. It hadn't mattered out here. They had Allura for that. 

"I want us- to work on cultivating our front yard,“ Shiro explained.

"We have a front yard together?“ Keith asked19.  

"It's a metaphor," Shiro said unnecessarily.

"Our new intel about your Galra heritage puts you in a vulnerable position within our team. You need my support as someone who knows you. Someone who trusts you, but doesn't play favorites.“

"So what? You don't. You're a good leader,“ Keith grumbled.

"Work with me here.“ The feeling of old familiarity didn't just come from old topics, Keith realized. The words recalled their mentoring sessions. All the times Shiro had asked him "to work with him", when in hindsight it really had been him doing Keith a favor.

He shot back, "I didn't look at your butt.“ It came out more annoyed than he meant it to.

For a moment Shiro looked disappointed. He probably wanted Keith to be more honest with him. 

"Of course. But let's keep things clear, to outsiders. So that our neighbors don't get a false impression from our garden gnomes.“ 

Keith gave him an inquiring look. Why did Shiro want garden gnomes in their front yard? They were really tacky. 

"Just trying to lighten the mood,“ Shiro explained with a smile.

To an extent Keith knew he couldn't trust Shiro's smile about this. A person who thinks metaphors with garden gnomes are light-hearted, can't be trusted to not put garden gnomes in their front yard once age puts them into a position of both sentimentality and garden ownership.  

And Shiro's smile wasn't even his extra nice smile where he squinted his eyes, but the sort of smile he bestowed freely and very deliberately. Yet Keith felt himself losing ground like a life-sized statue of Heero Yui made of butter, slowly melt-sliding on a hot tin roof.

...Damnit. If Shiro wanted figures of kitchy old men in their garden, he could have them.

All this reasoning about garden gnomes was distracting them though. They still weren't getting to the actual issue!! Keith looked at his hands.

"Fraternization... it's about soldiers in the same chain of command getting into inappropriate relationships. Nobody seriously thinks you would be getting it on with me. Not even Lance.“

He glanced up when he heard rustling of pant legs. Shiro moved to sit down next to him. 

"I hear you." He put his hand on Keith's shoulder. "But the ...garden gnomes in our front yard might look suggestive.20 That's just a thing that happens naturally, given the chance."

Someone, somewhere, suppressed a snort but Keith didn't pay that any mind. 

"Hold on," he said slowly. "Is this about that one time when...“ He broke away from the contact, but stayed close, trying to find words without thinking them through too much. It steered him front first into a breaks off retelling.

"We were talking about plans for my third year, after you got the okay for Keberos. I asked if you wanted to go look at the stars. You said no, I have dinner with my supervisor, and I was like, okay, but I have a picnic blanket?“

Hunk, who had just been trying very hard to not alert the other two to his presence, gave himself away with a loud giggle turned cough.

Keith shot him a scowl, before turning back to Shiro, who had crossed his arms.

"I know you better now. Better than that,“ Keith reassured him with a smile.

Shiro had raised his eyebrows and turned his mouth down, like a man who was putting all his efforts into balancing a pen on his finger tip. 

"That's... great. It seems like we're on the same page? How about we-" 

 

Pidge burst into the room, movements locked. Laptop and note pad were tucked under arm.

"Hrrm.“ She adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat once she noticed that she had everbody’s attention in the room. Then she choked a little on her spit and had to clear her throat again21.

"QUEER KIDS UNITE,“ Pidge declared, coughing. 

"Katie-“

 

"I don’t see how it’s a thing, as in, a thought crime, to look at people’s butts, even if those people are officers?“

Pidge, who was gaining confidence, continued in the pressing tone she usually reserved for rants about outdated VR browsers.

"I know Allura agrees and she's our commanding officer anyway. You're narrowing the range of consciousness by not permitting people to look at your- Wait, let me pull up my notes."

“Shiro’s gay,“ Keith interrupted.

"Don’t...“ Shiro caught himself and sighed.

"I know that. Dad and Matt talked about it," said Pidge as she sat down. She flipped open her note pad. Keith caught a glimpse of a swarm of doodled butts going up in flames and rainbows.

"Alright, point taken. I shouldn’t have doubted that we accept everyone in this team," Shiro said quickly, not too keen on Pidge's essay. "How about we hug it out? ...Guys?“

He turned to Keith, but Keith was already climbing over the back of the divan. 

"I don't think... that's necessary," he said intently, training his eyes on the safe middle distance.  

 

Just then, Lance brushed past him to thud into the room.

"Shiro, you’re the boss, but I gotta say- hey, what are you guys doing here?“

"We are being supportive of Keith’s orientation," Hunk started.

"And his right to look at Shiro’s butt!“ Pidge ended for him, craning her neck to look at Lance upside-down.

"Shut up!“ said Lance in disbelief. "I’m Keith's rival, I’m the one who’s supposed to generously speak up for him.“

"Well it seems like all of us here are queer? So we beat you to it. What are the odds? Still, good ally game, Lance!“ Hunk added quickly.

"Hey, I’m bicurious!“ Lance protested. "Wait, what do you mean, everyone. Even-“

"Shiro. He's gay," supplied Keith as he pushed past Lance into the corridor without looking back. 

 

"Don't go through that door, we're still doing the hug!" Hunk called after him. He maybe took hugs the most serious out all of them.

"Come back! ...Keith!" Lance stuck his head out of the door.

"Fine, be like that! But don't think this is the resolution of your Galra ancestors being genociding bad guys and you lying about that. We're still holding you accountable for that! You can't conflate that with lbqt issues! This is not the X-Men!!"

And Shiro? Shiro said nothing.

 

Keith rounded the corner.

He was glad that he and Shiro were on the same page again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 15 In fact it had been Coran.
> 
> 16 In reality Planatcea hadn't been created from scratch. Instead they had scrubbed off the top layer of a smaller moon and remanufractured it into a new celestial body. Before there had been native life forms on the moon at a bacterial scale, but nobody developed enough to collect pesky signature collections just yet. More cynical spirits in the planet building industry called this a Cradle-to-Cradle design approach. 
> 
> 18 Keith knew all about triangles. This one was particularly human resource friendly. 
> 
> 19 Keith felt the sudden need to get Shiro's opinion on front yard decks. And whether they should go with treated pine or ipe wood. He had been faced with the issue before when patching up part of the shack, after tearing a hole into a wall when trying to get a dead rat nest out of it. This time he was leaning towards ipe. 
> 
> 20 It wasn't a mere coincidence that "Lampy", the nickname of the only garden gnome of the original batch that Philip Griebel manufactured and Sir Charles Isham brought to Britain in 1847, was also the stage name of the most coveted stripper/actor/sex guru/op vlogger in the Central Galaxy at the time. Lampy was majorly channeling the Roman god Priapus, in a statistically unlikely case of personification, but not impossible form of incarnation, given the nearly endless number of sexy beings with a webcam in the galaxy. 
> 
> 21 Usually she was too single-minded to be self-conscious and avoided being awkward that way.  
> 
> 17 The truth was: Shiro's butt was not that great. This was especially notable when he was in the same room with Hunk.  
>  The truth was, for Keith: it was still Shiro's butt.  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Voltron General Big Bang.
> 
> Many thanks to KeithHawke, who took on extra claims during the big bang! Take a look at [KeithHawke's tumblr](http://keithhawke.tumblr.com) and check out [the high definition version](http://keithhawke.tumblr.com/post/164179314124) of their illustrations as well, for neat easter eggs and maximum enjoyment!


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